The Best Website Builders

There are many benefits to using a website builder. The most obvious being it will build your website for you, or at the very least, provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to do it yourself. With this being said, no two providers are alike.

Some offer more features to help you along the process, some have drag and drop capabilities, some even offer a flat-rate fee to have their web design team build the site for you. There are also free website builders which let you build a basic website at no cost whatsoever. No matter what you’re looking for there are dozens of providers offering fantastic features, so you're sure to find the one that's right for you.

Here at 123Compared, we've gathered hundreds of reviews from dozens of website building services, and then compared, analysed and organised the results. This way anyone can find a suitable website buider that matches their requirements in seconds.

Disclosure

We aim to keep the information on this site as honest and up to date as possible. As such we do accept commission from featured brands whenever a visitor completes a purchase. The positioning and rating of each brand is determined from a combination of customer reviews, our own opinions from our own research as well as the commission rates each brand pays us. Please note that whilst we have endeavoured to review and compare a large number of available site builders, we have not managed to compare all of the providers. Any user should always carry out their own research into a provider's suitability.

A Guide to Using Website Building Sites

Here we’ll go through some of the pros/cons of using a website builder, how they can help you build your site, and other general information. You’ll also see what to look for when choosing a website builder, these are a few of the many things you should look for, to ensure you pick the best one.

What kind of site can you build?

A blog? A wordpress site? An ecommerce page? Yes, yes, and yes. There are website building platforms which cater to any, and all types of companies. In fact, there are many which offer a free blog site, if you don’t plan on monetizing your page, or are just getting started with a blog, which you later plan on integrating into a full-blown website.

No matter who your audience is, what you want to sell, or the type of audience you are trying to reach, there are several website building platforms, which can help you achieve your goals, and design a beautiful website your audience is going to love. You can add products from an eBay shop, you can implement Amazon checkout tools, or you can simply create a blog, which you’ll later link to your e commerce page, to help increase sales, and get backlinks from top contributors online.

Website building sites allow you to build any kind of website, for any audience, and targeting any specific niche industry that your company operates in. It is, however, up to you, as the business owner, to take the time to compare the to website design sites. Doing this will make it much easier for you to find a builder which not only allows you to import the products you want to sell, but also integrate the different platforms you would like to use, when building your site, to ensure you can reach the right audience and end-client.

Which website builder is right for me?

The ultimate question you want answered. Well, the answer is, it depends! A good way to narrow down your options is by starting with the website builders which cater to your niche or industry. Simply do a quick search of businesses that host with them, and this will give you a clear indicator of whether or not they are a good fit for you.

From there, you can start comparing prices, service offerings, pricing for e commerce pages (and how many products you can add monthly for that price), if there are annual fees, and setup fees, and so forth. Once you have a list, you will find it much easier to choose the best website builder to help your company grow, and to make your life a lot easier when you are building your new website.

The right site builder is going to make the process easy, fun, and intuitive. It is also going to allow you to easily implement new sales tools, and products, so you can reach a larger audience. Before you choose a website builder to build your online website, these are a few of the many factors you should consider, to help you narrow down your options, and eventually choose the best platform to build, design, and ultimately host your online website with, as a business owner.

Prices & Features

This is greatly going to depend on the website builder you choose. On average, most offer something in the price range of $5-$25 per month. This will allow you to:

Add products to an e commerce site to sell.

Choose from unlimited themes when building your site.

Add blog content.

Use email hosting.

Have access to several GB of storage, and high bandwidth capabilities.

Of course, some website builders will offer more or fewer services, and higher storage limits, based upon the pricing plan, and the type of business you operate. This is why it is important for you to compare the best website builders, to find the ones which best cater to your industry-niche, as a business owner. Doing this will give you more leverage, in terms of comparing and finding the best prices, and will also allow you to find the website builder which will do the best job in helping you create and maintain your website online.

Can’t I build the site on my own?

Sure, you can. The issue is, most new business owners don’t know where to begin. With a website builder, not only do you have the intuitive guidance, you also have step-by-step features, to help you build a site which not only looks good but is highly responsive. And, you can even pay the website team to build the site for you, if you want to make something a little more professional looking for your audience.

There are so many benefits of using a website builder when you are designing your new website. It is, of course, important to know which site builders cater to your specific industry or niche. Not only to ensure your site looks good, but also that it is responsive, and will easily allow your audience to find what they are looking for, each time they visit your website.

Keypoints

Below is a list of some of the top features you should look out for when choosing a website builder:

Free Site Builder

Custom Domain Name

Free & Reliable Hosting

Mobile Friendly Website Templates

Easy to Use, Drag & Drop Editor

One-page & Multi-page Web Templates

Easy to Build Online Stores

Free Fonts & Stock Images

Site Analytics & Financial Tools

Unlimited Web Pages

Custom Forms & Feeds

Pros and Cons

Pros:

As mentioned above, many benefits will follow when you choose to build your website with a website builder service rather than on your own. Some benefits include:

Step-by-step tools. If you have no idea what an e commerce or blog is, or how to incorporate both onto one site, you’ll have the guides you need to do so.

Drag and drop building capabilities. Most sites allow you to simply drag the features you want onto your site, choose images, products you are selling, and other design elements, and drop them directly into the design template.

Thousands of free themes to choose from. And, most site builders have dedicated themes, or niche-specific themes, so you can find a perfect website design/layout, for your website and your target audience.

An intuitive dashboard. This allows you to go from section to section while building your site, create engaging content, and edit pages as you’re building, to make something your visitors will love.

Most website builders also include ‘freebies’. These may come in the form of Google Adwords, Bing rewards, Yahoo marketing, or other features. Also, SEO tools, marketing tools, and the ability to add third-party sites, and other monetization features (in the form of pay-per-click ads), are some benefits of working with a website builder.

Cons:

Now that you know some of the benefits, there are also some drawbacks you should consider. For starters, most website builders limit bandwidth. This is namely because thousands of other sites are running through their website as well, meaning there are times your site might not run as quickly as you’d like.

Another drawback is pricing. For most anything you add, including a mobile website, marketing ads, e commerce pages, adding payment wallets, and so forth, you incur an additional fee. So, you can add these things to your site, but the more features and more items you want to add, the more it’ll cost you to do so.

Many sites also experience downtime. Some offer things like domain registration and purchasing, as well as server hosting, and email hosting. These are great features, and if you’re a huge corporation, it is easy to afford these things. But, the smaller companies are going to find it hard to incorporate all of these integral features they need, for a reasonable monthly cost when working with a website builder to develop their website.

Things to Consider

If you’ve made the decision to build your site with a website builder, there are some things you simply can’t do without. So, let’s see some of these ‘must have features’, for you to keep in mind, when choosing a website builder.

1. Quick speeds

This goes both for your desktop and mobile sites. If the website builder can’t guarantee your page will load when someone visits it, in under 5-seconds, look elsewhere. Most people won’t stick around for more than 3-5 seconds to wait for a site to load. If your site doesn’t load quickly, you run the risk of losing visitors. Make sure the website builder can guarantee these speeds.

2. Marketing/promo materials

It goes without saying that you have to promote your website, and you want it to rank well on SEO searches. You want to choose a builder and host which will offer Adword credits, as well as SEO and marketing tools, when you use their site over competitors. You have many companies to choose from for designing and hosting your site; make sure you choose those which offer the best features to you.

3. More theme options

With most sites, you’ll have hundreds, if not thousands of themes to choose from. When choosing your site to host and build your website, make sure you have many options to consider for your website. Especially in niches where you are targeting a very-specific audience. Know what to look for, and that your site is going to attract the right visitors once it’s up and running.

4. Integrative tools

This means everything from the intuitive dashboard which lets you see where you left off and where you need to go when building your site, to the drag and drop, or Cloud uploading features you desire. No matter what kind of site you are building, you want it to be easy. So, choose a site which makes the work seamless, and error proof for you, when building your site.

5. Ecommerce integration

Sure, you want to add products to sell to your site. But, you also want to offer customers many ways to pay for those products, and more platforms to find your products from. Choose a site builder and host which allows you to integrate payment tools online, accept e-checks, virtual card payments, and one which allows you to have several domains, under one site, so that visitors can purchase through different platforms and sites.

6. The extras

This might come in the form of server-hosting if you operate a large business in a big office complex, it might be the addition of email hosting, or the ability to integrate blogs and Wordpress sites. No two businesses are alike; therefore, the features, and design characteristics you are going to look for, when building your website, are going to differ in each case.

As a business owner, it is up to you to compare website builders, and find those sites which offer you the most features, and the most services, for the lowest price, while guaranteeing you the highest uptime, when your site is up and running on their platform. It is important to compare several site builders, their features, product offerings, and pricing. Doing this will give you a better idea of what each company has to offer and will make it much easier for you to choose a hosting and site builder which offers the best features, for your site, and your niche audience.

Check out our Top 5 Best Website Builders - Reviewed & Compared

123Compared collects and analyses hundreds of customer reviews and ratings in order to compare and organise online service providers into orderly tables from which our readers can easily choose a suitable company for their needs.